Sacred Journey Spiritual Companioning

06/28/2024

12/07/2023

05/06/2023

All commissioned students: We hope to see you in Elgin at Zion Lutheran Church for our all-class reunion on June 24th. It is an opportunity to reconnect, or connect for the first time, with other Sacred Journey Students!

You should have received an invitation in the mail in early May. If you didn't receive it, leave us a message here.

05/29/2020

We haven't posted for a while! Like everywhere, our plans for a workshop this Spring were cancelled. Let me share this Perspective from another Spiritual Director, Connie Seraphine:

The words we hear about this mysterious virus that continues to spread, increasingly to children, carry serious emotional content and power to influence

07/24/2019

As I go through emails, I re-found this excellent piece on fear and freedom. I hope you find it helpful!

On Freedom

By Scott Stoner, for Living Compass

As our nation celebrated Independence Day yesterday, I found myself thinking about what it means to be free. The most common meaning of freedom I find for most people has to do with being free from an external control. This, of course, is the understanding the founders of our nation had in mind when they signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring our new country's freedom in 1776.

There is another meaning of freedom though that I am quite familiar with as a pastor and a therapist. This meaning of freedom is more of an internal experience, as when a person announces to me, "When I first came in here and talked about my guilt for what I had done, it was very painful. I feel like talking has helped, and I feel that it has freed something up in me." Another example of this kind of freedom is when I hear, "I used to feel so 'stuck' in my grief and sadness, but now that I've been facing it, I feel small signs renewed energy that has been freed up in me."

Whenever we feel trapped or stuck in life, it is essential that we take some time to reflect on whether the cause of this trapped or stuck feeling is external or internal. Most of us have had the experience of thinking we were trapped by a job, a relationship, or the place where we were living, only to realize later after we left the job, relationship or place, that we still felt the same trapped way. There is a book entitled, Wherever You Go, There You Are, that explains quite well that whatever external changes we may make, we inevitably take our internal selves with us.

We are all undoubtedly familiar with the ways a person can be held captive externally, but what are some of the ways a person can be held captive internally? I referred to two examples earlier--a person can be held captive by unresolved guilt or by grief. A person can also be held captive by a bad habit or an addiction. Shame holds many people captive, especially people who have experienced abuse or neglect. Worry, anxiety, and fear have probably kept most of us captive at one time or another in our lives.

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples have a discussion about the external and internal meanings of freedom. Jesus says to his disciples, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." His followers do not understand that he is talking about an internal sense of freedom, and they respond to Jesus by letting him know that he is not making sense to them. They have never been held captive by anyone they declare. In their minds, they are already free because they are talking about freedom from an external captor. Jesus is inviting them into another meaning of freedom, an internal freedom that is both spiritual and emotional and is one that they have not yet experienced.

So in honor of the 4th of July, let's all take this same invitation, an invitation to greater freedom by declaring our independence from whatever may be controlling us internally. The first step is to acknowledge where we feel stuck or trapped--to identify in what way we long to feel freer. After we have done this, we will need to discern what is that truth that will set us free--what must we learn, say or do to get unstuck? Do we need to face a secret in our lives that we have been hiding from ourselves and others? Do we need to have a difficult conversation with someone we love? Do we need to deepen our spiritual life? Do we need to change a bad habit? As we do this, we will soon learn that we may need the support of others in our efforts. We will most likely need the help of friends, family, a spiritual leader/and or community, a coach, or a counselor. Let's remember that creating the Declaration of Independence was a group effort too!

As we remember and celebrate the founding of our nation, may we be inspired to persevere in discovering and living the truth in our lives that will set us free as well.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

(I am taking a few days off or the holiday weekend and so this column is an updated version of a previous column I wrote several years ago.)

03/02/2019

Practice Makes...

By Scott Stoner, for Living Compass

I was raised with the well-intended advice that, "Practice makes perfect." The good part of that was that I developed some pretty good practice habits around the things I wanted to do well-such as throwing a baseball, playing the piano, and shooting a basketball. The part of the advice that turned out not be accurate though is that even with all that practicing I have never actually perfected anything, either as a child or as an adult.

I can't remember how many years ago I first heard a different version of the advice related to practicing that I received growing up. What I can clearly remember is how right it felt when I heard someone say, "Practice makes progress." Now that made sense and it completely aligned with my own experience. Whenever I have committed to practicing something regularly I have always made at least some degree of progress.

Starting March 6th, more than a billion Christians around the world will begin a seven-week focus, in observation of the season of Lent, on some form of spiritual practice. The focus of my spiritual practice this Lent will be forgiveness. It is not a coincidence that my focus on forgiveness is also the focus of our 2019 Living Compass Lenten Daily Devotional. The theme for this year's daily readings is, "Practicing Forgiveness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind," and is available for all who are interested in this important topic.

As preparation for my upcoming focus on forgiveness, I just finished reading, "Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope" by Dr. Robert Enright. I found the publisher's description of the book to be accurate: "By demonstrating how forgiveness, approached in the correct manner, benefits the forgiver far more than the forgiven, this self-help book benefits people who have been deeply hurt by another and caught in a vortex of anger, depression, and resentment." Enright is a psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and is widely regarded as one of the world's thought leaders on forgiveness. Understanding the process he lays out for forgiveness is relatively easy; applying the process is another matter altogether. Hence the need I feel about spending more time focusing on forgiveness.

If you would like to join us on this journey of self-reflection, you can subscribe to our daily emails, join our Facebook discussion group which, and download free PDFs of both our English and Spanish booklets by visiting www.livingcompass.org/lent.

Forgiveness of both ourselves and others can be challenging work, but it is work well worth doing. My goal for focusing on forgiveness for the next seven weeks is not about perfection, but about making small steps of progress in this essential life-long practice. I hope you will join us.

02/15/2019

So true! It is interesting to see how our eyes seem to be trained to find flaws, such as "critc," below. We would be better served to look for what's right and encourage more. You will like Rev. Stoner's suggestion that "I [heart] You" could be better interpreted as "I Encourage You!"

Ah-hah! He caught the typo since I shared this. Even so, it was a good lesson for me! --Roberta

Be an Encourager

By Scott Stoner for Living Compass.

This past weekend I watched the Grammy awards and couldn’t help but notice a pattern. Many of the winners started their acceptance speeches with some version of, “I just want to thank ______ for encouraging me to believe in myself, or take a risk, or be true to myself, to never give up….” The implication is that without the encouragement they are referencing, they might never have been able to accomplish what they did.

Most of us will not ever find ourselves giving an acceptance speech in front of millions of viewers, but most of us have received the gift of someone who has encouraged us. Pause for a moment and bring to mind someone who encouraged you at some point in your life. Do you remember what they said? Perhaps not, but you likely remember the spirit of what they said, and how much it boosted your confidence and self-esteem.

The first three words in the quote in the box above by Dave Willis are so simple that it would be easy to miss their power. Be an encourager. I have already noted the significant impact encouragement has on people in the frequency with which its power is referenced in the award speeches at the Grammys. Offering encouraging words to your child, partner, friend, colleague, family member, or even a stranger, is so simple do to and yet we can often immediately see their positive effect.

In light of the celebration of Valentine’s ay the week, we have all seen countless images of hearts, including some version of the popular graphic that has the word “I” followed by a heart, which is then followed by the word you.

While the obvious meaning of this is “I love you,” it can also be interpreted as a perfect representation of the words, “I encourage you.” This is because the word “courage” derives from the same root as the Latin word for heart, “cor,’ and in Old French, the word “corage.” The prefix “en” means “to cause to be in,” or “to put in” and so together to encourage another person literally means to put heart into that person.

So who do you know that could use a little encouragement right now? What could you say or do that could put some heart into their lives? Your encouragement might not lead to their winning a Grammy someday, but I guarantee it will add some sweet music to their lives in the present moment.

11/21/2018

We wish a blessed Thanksgiving to all! Relax into this meditation by Brother David Steindl-Rast.

Ten years ago, Br. David recorded A Good Day, which has been watched well over 1 million times. We invite you to join us in celebrating this timeless message...

11/16/2018

I do enjoy Scott Stoner's emails. Take a look at this blog of his as we move into the crazy-busy times of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.

Holidays and Traffic Signs

Several people have shared with me in the last twenty-four hours that they are already stressing about the holidays. One person said they wished they could wake up tomorrow and it would be January 1st and the holidays would be behind them. The holidays can indeed be a stressful time, and so a little psychological and spiritual preparation can go a long way to making them a more pleasant experience.

I have made several roads trips recently for work, and I have found some wisdom that might help with holiday stress in a rather unlikely source—road construction signs. My favorite one so far is, “Stay alert! Traffic pattern changed ahead.” True to the sign, the lanes on the interstate had shifted due to construction, and because it was a road I drive frequently, the sign was helpful in alerting me to the changed conditions.

This sign is excellent advice for the holidays, a time when we are faced with the reality that the patterns in our families may have naturally and predictably shifted over time. Grief and loss are not uncommon during the holidays as we can’t help but realize that things are different than they used to be. Previous patterns around the holidays have changed, and the old familiar roads look different now.

Another sign I saw was, “Major delays ahead—Alternate Routes Suggested.” Sometimes we just need to be flexible and be open to taking a different route. If we have young children, or even a teenager, in the family we will have to do things differently than we did a few years ago. We will have to adjust accordingly, taking “a new route” to help everyone have fun and enjoy being together.

“Construction traffic may be entering ahead, be ready to yield,” is another sign I saw that can be helpful wisdom for the holidays. The ability to be flexible and to be able to yield will always serve us well, but especially so this time of year. And something that will help us to be able to yield is the advice seen when approaching any road construction area—“Slow down.” I am convinced that one of the reasons we speed our lives up this time of year, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, is because we are doing so to speed through or around whatever grief, sadness, or uncomfortable feelings we might be experiencing.

A road sign that is always a welcome sight for our tired eyes is the one that tells us there is a rest area or oasis a few miles ahead. We are wise to not only slow down during the holidays, but actually create time and space to stop, breathe, pray, meditate, and recharge on a regular basis.

A little preparation will always make a road trip more enjoyable, and the same is true for the holiday season. Doing so means we will have a much better chance of adjusting to any changes we may encounter so that we are more able to enjoy this most special time of year.

By Scott Stoner for Living Compass

10/19/2018

Visit https://odb.org/ to read about this image.